


let anger and fear and hate disappear

by NaomiLeyers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 22:11:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17109059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaomiLeyers/pseuds/NaomiLeyers
Summary: in which Bucky and Steve deal with the fact that Bucky Barnes is real and he loves Steve Rogers about as much as Steve Rogers loves him





	let anger and fear and hate disappear

**Author's Note:**

> nothing belongs to me excepts plot, all mistakes are my own and the title is from Let It Be Christmas by Alan Jackson because it’s Christmas and I am weak  
> also, this has come out a lot more emotional and a lot less amusing than I already planned but it’s mostly fluff, I promise and the only violence is in the first 6 lines :)

1

 

The woman is crying.

The Asset walks closer to her. He has shot her twice already, one of the bullets hit her shoulder and smashed it and with the second he shot her into chest and he can feel life escaping her, but the order was to kill her painfully and so that’s what he will do. 

“Please, don’t,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “Please. My children-“

She never finishes the sentence; the Asset stabs her, buries his combat knife into her belly and she screams and he cuts through her body, opening her.

 

Bucky never wakes up with a scream. It was one of the first things Steve noticed after he and Bucky first met in Wakanda almost a year ago. (Tony Stark took one look at the bleeding man once known as the Winter Soldier on his doorstep, admitted he cannot fix his brain and went to call Princess Shuri with a sigh.) He wakes up suddenly but quietly and there are tears rolling down his cheeks. 

“Hey,” Steve says softly, thinking of those two years when he was incapable of finding him, of those two years when Bucky had to wake up from his nightmares alone. “I am here.”

Bucky looks at his and his eyes are glassy but he is awake.

“Her name was Tara,” he tells Steve, his voice barely a whisper. “She was helping in Sudan, fighting corruption there. Hydra didn’t like it and so they sent him, sent me.”

Steve doesn’t tell him it’s alright. It isn't. (He thinks of Rumlow and of Alexander Pierce and isn't sure if it is good that they are both dead, because he would very much like killing them with his bare hands for doing this to Bucky, to the kindest, smartest man Steve has ever met.)

“I killed her,” Bucky continues and he sounds detached but at least he hasn’t run away yet.

The worst memories are gone, Shuri has locked them away, but even she couldn’t get them all and some of them haunt Bucky still. Steve reaches to him and when Bucky doesn’t flinch, he gently pulls him into his arms and Bucky presses as close to him as it is physically possible. 

“I killed her,” he repeats and Steve gently kisses his temple.

“You didn’t. They forced you to do it but it’s not your fault.”

“What if I do it again?” Bucky retorts. “What if Shuri didn’t get all my words out? What if the Winter Soldier takes over again?”

Steve kisses him then, lightly but with a meaning.

“You are the Winter Soldier,” he answers, not unkindly, “you are the Winter Soldier and you were brave and strong enough to break through decades of brainwashing. I’ve never met anyone stronger, Bucky. You are real and you are here, in Wakanda, with me. This is real. Nothing else matters.”

“Real,” Bucky repeats and he lets Steve hug him even tighter. 

“Love you,” he says then, sleepily and Steve smiles through tears and kisses his hair.

“Love you,” he repeats holding Bucky as tight as he dares, thankful for the feeling of him, for the reality of him.

They are both healing. But, for the first time in years, they have time for that. 

 

2

 

The wedding is small.

Or, better, the wedding is unexpectedly small given that Tony Stark is the man organizing it. Which means the wedding is still huge enough that Bucky feels slightly uncomfortable (he wouldn’t, once, he thinks bitterly, once he would absolutely enjoy being surrounded by good hundred people while saying, finally saying yes to Steve and kissing him). 

Either way, the wedding is small enough that the press doesn’t find out about it even though it is not taking place in Wakanda; Bucky is sure it’s Pepper’s responsibility and he will adore her forever for it. Bucky is also very thankful for the chance to say yes to Steve in Brooklyn. Sentimental? Maybe, but he thinks he deserves it.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” Thor says, weighing those words on his tongue and Bucky still isn't sure how he should feel, when hearing them. Sergeant James Barnes died good seventy years ago when he fell of that terrible train in Europe and Bucky doesn’t think he will ever be able to forget that. (Memories of Hydra’s torture are safely locked somewhere deep inside his brain, behind an undefeatable wall carefully built by Shuri but Bucky is never going to let himself forget the names of his victims or falling and leaving Steve all alone.)

“Bucky,” Thor corrects himself before Bucky can, “do you promise to marry the man standing in front of you? Do you promise to protect him with your life and love him in wealth and poverty, in health and illness” (he did all, Bucky thinks, and failed terribly in most but he will not, never again) “till the death parts you?” 

Bucky forces himself to stop staring at Thor and look at Steve, standing in front of him, tall, handsome, brave and fucking beaming with happiness as if he thinks today is the best day of his life. (It is Bucky’s.)

“I do,” Bucky says and he didn’t think Steve could look happier, but somehow he does. 

“Splendid,” Thor tells no one in particular. “Steven. Do you promise to marry the man standing in front of you? Do you promise to protect him with your life and love him in wealth and poverty, in health and illness till the death parts you?”

Steve looks him dead in the eyes and gently puts a hand on Bucky’s waist as he says “I do.” 

Sam Wilson is crying openly as he offers Steve Bucky’s ring. Natasha Romanov hands Bucky Steve’s ring with a small content smile.

(And fine, Bucky has been famous for hitting every aim with a rifle steady in his hands, always, but his hands are still trembling as he puts the ring on Steve’s ring finger.)

“You can kiss now,” Thor almost sings and Bucky can practically hear Thor’s brother rolling his eyes in the background, but it doesn’t matter, not now, because now Steve moves and breaks the small distance and kisses him, slowly, deeply, and Bucky obediently parts his lips to let him in and thinks, yes, this, this is absolutely worth every minute of those seventy years of pain if those seventy years of pain mean he can marry Steve right now.

 

3

 

Bucky would very much like to meet the person who was crazy enough to allow Steve talk in a national television. 

He also almost regrets the owner, almost.

“Please do tell us, what Captain America likes to do in his free time?” the reporter asks and Steve smiles at him, sharply.

“I absolutely adore riding my Harley-Davidson around Washington with my husband Bucky,” he says and Bucky almost chokes on his coffee.

Natasha is laughing openly.

The reporter, on the other hand, is staring at Steve with horror in his eyes until the cameraman hits him not very gently and the man blinks couple of times and he must be realizing they are going live because he forces a smile.

“Captain,” he says, “I’ve always known Ironman was wrong in all his interviews and you do possess a sense of humor.”

“Right,” Steve says coldly and Bucky can practically see his heart breaking and he can see Steve hiding behind his way too believable wall of a national icon. “Of course. I usually enjoy reading Declaration of Independence when I am not fighting aliens.”

Bucky looks at Natasha for a second; she looks murderous, about as much as Bucky himself feels.

“If I do what I want PR will hate me even more than now, right?” he says, more than asks and Natasha smiles at him coldly.

“One of us is going to do something,” she only says and Bucky decides it is enough of permission.

He shreds his leather jacket and he isn't wearing a prosthetic, but it's alright, because he is doing this for Steve and Steve loves him both with and without that piece of metal (Bucky, after breaking through the decades of Winter Soldier hated the original one, but this one doesn’t at least make him feel like a branded animal. Nevertheless, he still feels more human without it.)

He walks to Steve and Steve looks surprised but he is looking him dead in the eye and Bucky voicelessly asks the question “Can I?” and Steve understands and nods and then Bucky presses himself against him and kisses him, real and sweet and Steve, not Captain America, Steve laughs softly and buries his hands into Bucky's hair as he deepens the kiss.

Bucky isn't sure how long they are kissing and he is somewhat aware of the reporter urgently saying “Stop recording!” and of Natasha's icy “My, I wouldn’t recommend you doing that.” but he doesn’t care, not now.

They only part when they absolutely need to breathe and Bucky turns himself so that the camera can film both of them and now, now it is time to be even braver.

“I am Bucky Barnes,” he says, loud enough for the camera to catch it. “The original one. I married Steve two months ago and just so that we are clear on this, I am real. And I married Steve Rogers, not Captain America, thank you very much.” He smiles at Steve and Steve smiles at him and they must look ridiculously in love but it doesn’t matter. They deserve it. “Not that Captain America isn't an amazing guy. But he is just an alter ego, if you wouldn’t mind understanding it finally. The man you should want to know is Steve Rogers, but it won't help you because he is taken already. And this is the last thing he or I are going to tell you.”

“He's right, you know,” Steve says and he is beaming and he is Steve and that’s all that matters.

They leave the studio holding hands.

 

THE END


End file.
